Here is what's at the center of a federal lawsuit that could unblock millions of acres of public land in the American West: a steel stepladder, quickly welded together in a home workshop, then placed on the rolling hills here in the fall of 2021.
The cash-strapped government's 19th-century plan resulted in a checkerboard of private and public land, leading to over 8 million public acres in 11 Western states that are essentially unreachable due to legal complexities of corner-crossing.
[
Collection
]
[
|
...
]